with blender now set up for 3d printing and millimeter precision let's bring in an stl and
edit it up let's go to file import stl now find the file that you're wanting to edit this one here
is down in the description and click import now if you don't know how to move around in blender
use the scroll wheel to zoom in and out hold down the middle mouse button to rotate around and it
is shift and the middle mouse button to pan around this is something called a mesh object you want to
edit the mesh inside of the object to go inside of the object press tab to go into edit mode
in here you can see that it's all triangulated because it's an stl so let's simplify this file
let's press a to make sure everything is selected press x and then here we'll find limited dissolve
then i'm going to open up the operator panel here and limit that to 0.1 and you'll see that that has
deleted all of the extra mesh that's not needed now i quickly want to find out the distance of
this because i want this to fit my desk so let's go over to the measure tool here hold down control
for snapping and click and drag from one vertex to the other so that's 50 millimeters a little
bit big for me so i'm going to press x to remove that w for selection and then i'm going to try and
select all of that right there you'll see that we cannot select through mesh to select through mesh
we need to go into x-ray view so that is alt z and now we'll be able to select through the mesh
itself i'll press alt z once again and now i just want to point out that right this minute up here
in the middle we are in snapping of increments i want to snap to vertex and i also want to point
out that this green line here is the y axis and you can see that from this little gizmo on the
top right so when we move this by pressing g for grab and then y to constrain it to the y axis and
then hold down control to snap it to a vertex we have that in that place there so we can press g y
once again and put in a unit input i'm going to put in 18 for my desk and press enter now i'm
not too happy with the design of this file so i want to add a bevel right here so i want to select
that vertex there hold down control and select the one down at the bottom to do a chain selection
and i just want to show you that this isn't going to work when i add a bevel right this minute so
ctrl b for a bevel pull that out and use the scroll wheel to add more segments and that is
really not what i'm wanting so ctrl z that now there's many reasons why that didn't work but
that's out of the scope of this video i'll press 2 for edge selection select to this edge here
press x and i'm going to dissolve that edge i also need to go back into vertex selection with one
i'm going to select this vertex and that vertex and add an edge there with the shortcut of j
this joins them and cuts the face at the same time i'm going to go to the other side and do exactly
the same thing so right here and right here press j and that joins them and cuts that face then i'll
select that bottom vertex once again control select that top one go ctrl b and now i'll be
able to do that bevel once again without a problem i'll put in 15 to make that a 15 millimeter bevel
use the scroll wheel to add more segments and left click so i'm happy with that design now so
i'll press tab to go back into object mode but now i need to check that this is ready for 3d
printing to do that i need to add something to blender and that's called an add-on i'm going
to go over to edit then preferences and right here where it says add-ons i'm going to search
print and here you'll find the 3d print toolbox turning this on adds something to blender and you
can find that by pressing n to open up the side menu here and you'll find the 3d print toolbox
option right there with this selected click check all and you'll see that there's going to be a
couple of problems but don't worry we're going to be using the clean up of the 3d print toolbox i'll
click distort then make manifold i'm going to put this all the way down of the merge distance to 0.1
hit enter give that one last check now and you'll see that we're all down to zeros that is perfectly
ready for 3d printing let's press n to hide the side menu file and make sure you save your file
at this point but i'm just going to go straight to save then go to export and stl right there
select where it is i'm going to export this so i'll select it over here call it edit i like
to always make sure that i go selection only so only what i have selected in my scene will
get exported and click export don't forget that this is just the tip of the iceberg for blender
so if you're looking to learn more i have an entire free precision based course here on
youtube it's over 10 hours long very technically deep but you make one tiny little model while
doing it however if you're looking to learn blender for 3d printing through actual projects
head on over to maker tales academy where you can learn everything you need for blender for
3d printing and all the links for everything i've just mentioned are going to be down in the
description a huge thank you to my patrons without you i really would not be able to make maker tales
it really means the world to me and if you're enjoying what i'm making here you think i'm worthy
of your support i would love to see you there too and don't forget that we have a discord and that's
linked down in the description thank you for watching keep making and let the quest continue